Astros hit new level of frustration as 11th straight loss ties team record

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Special occasion that it was, the Astros sure made tying the franchise record for consecutive losses feel special.

There was absolutely nothing normal about this 6-5 loss to the Pirates that went down as the team’s 11th in a row and felt like about the 11,000th. Maybe because there were so many ways to lose just captured within one.

They blew a 3-0 lead and a 4-1 lead. They left 11 men on base when they had a chance to add on and most frustrating, with their closer down — even a closer who had no success in his two tries at it — the Astros had nothing left for the ninth.

They’d used up their best lefty and their best righty in a bizarre sequence trying to protect the one-run lead in the eighth and left things to a much less proven set in the ninth.

So once Wesley Wright finished his outstanding outing by retiring all the lefties he’d faced, Rhiner Cruz was tasked with getting two outs and got none.

A single and back-to-back walks, and Cruz could no longer be trusted with this game, the tying run 90 feet away and creeping in closer. So even though it went against the platoon “rules” that he followed so closely in moving Wright from the mound to right field and back to the mound to preserve him for more lefties in the eighth, he went with lefty Xavier Cedeno against righty Starling Marte in this jam of jams in the ninth.

“We just needed strikes,” Mills said. “(Cruz) was struggling to throw strikes and we just needed strikes.”

Marte tied the game with a sacrifice fly to center, and then Cedeno was the wild one, letting loose a wild pitch that allowed the Pirates to take a 6-5 lead.

“The first pitch he threw to Marte was a curveball that was low and had a lot of break on it,” said Drew Sutton, who alertly came home with the winning run for Pittsburgh. “I turned to (third base coach Nick) Leyva and said, ‘He might bounce his curveball.’ First pitch, he did.”

In essence, the game came down to how the Astros were going to use Wilton Lopez, their best righthanded reliever. The choices were to face Andrew McCUtchen in between Wright’s at-bats in the eighth or have him ready for the ninth, and the Pirates’ MVP candidate won out.

“We were going back and forth on that and (Lopez) had had such good success against McCutchen and we were trying to get to that ninth inning,” McCutchen said. “As we went through this, I knew what it was going to come down to, but we were in a situation where we had to get McCutchen to try to get to the ninth inning.”

McCutchen doubled anyway. The ninth went worse.

It was the Astros’ third blown save in four games, setting up the question of which is worse, those blown saves or that fourth game Thursday in which the Astros trailed 5-0 after two and were never really in it.

They had a chance in the ninth with J.D. Martinez singling and pinch runner Jordan Schafer stealing second, but Brian Bogusevic again ended the game with an out, bringing the losing streak to 11.

It’s a mark established in 1995 and equaled in a streak that began in 2009 and extended into 2010, and Wandy Rodriguez of all people can push the Astros to an unforeseen level of misery Saturday night.

Pirates 6 Astros 5
Tipping point: Rhiner Cruz walked Drew Sutton and Casey McGehee to load the bases in the ninth, setting the stage for the sac fly and wild pitch that followed. The ninth inning has been a nightmare since Brett Myers was traded.

On the mound: Jordan Lyles avoided the big inning, but he gave up leads of 3-0 and 4-1, which he called “unacceptable.” Two blown saves later, and it was a familiar story for the bullpen.

At the plate: Chris Johnson finished a single short of the cycle as he continued an outstanding run of reaching in seven straight plate appearances. Give him a Sabermetric cycle as his bases-empty walk was as good as a hit.

Under the radar: Lyles faced just one batter in the seventh — giving up a double to Michael McKenry — after hitting with one out in the sixth. Brad Mills said he wanted to try to squeeze every out possible, presumably knowing what might lurk ahead in the bullpen.